Look Inside

This powerful book shows how all teachers can build on the linguistic and cultural resources that students bring with them to school.

All teachers teach English language learners (ELLs). However, many practicing mainstream teachers have not been adequately prepared to engage the ELLs in their classes with core content-area instruction. In this book, Ponte and Higgins show teachers, teacher educators, and staff developers how to address this challenge.

Enriching Practice in Linguistically and Culturally Diverse Classrooms illustrates how teachers learn to make changes to the linguistic and pedagogical landscapes in their classes throughout the course of a one-year highly embedded professional development (PD) project in Hawai'i. The approach to PD is participatory; collaborative; linguistically and culturally responsive; and transformative for teachers, mentors, and teacher educators.

Key Features

Strategies that mainstream teachers can use to increase ELL student engagement with core content-area concepts and skills

Examples of ways to use different home languages as learning resources

A lesson planning framework that brings a language and culture lens to sheltered instruction

Ponte and Higgins offer a host of ways for teachers to provide input to quality, long-term professional development. Doing so raises the potential for participants to transform their pedagogy, because when teachers have a say in the direction of long-term professional development, they become recognized as members of a community of practice.